Works from the Erling Neby Collection
October 6, 2023–February 25, 2024
Kode Bergen Art Museum launches a major exhibition dedicated to geometric and concrete art. The Square’s Heart comprises approximately 100 paintings, sculptures and prints from Erling Neby’s collection, as well as works from Kode’s collection.
Over the past 50 years, the Norwegian art collector Erling Neby has built a substantial collection of geometric and concrete art. This winter Kode will present a significant part of his collection in the exhibition The Square’s Heart.
The Erling Neby Collection encompasses European, American and Nordic art. The main focus of the collection is on works from the post-war years, including leading figures such as Victor Vasarely, Max Bill, Auguste Herbin, Josef Albers, Aase Texmon Rygh and Olle Bærtling, as well as new generations of artists who, in different ways, use a geometric-abstract form of expression.
The term “concrete art” was coined by the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg in 1930, referring to works of art that are exclusively based on purely “plastic” elements, such as colour, line and plane. Such artworks will thereby form an independent “concrete” reality.
A new interest in perception psychology
Geometric-abstract art was accompanied by a new interest in how we perceive and process visual impressions. Insights from perception psychology could be used artistically to create dynamic and “living” images.
Closely connected as it was to utopian ideas of modernism, concrete art became the point of departure for a wide range of international exhibitions, groups and manifestos in the decades before and after World War II. What they had in common was an inexhaustible desire to explore the fundamental elements of an artwork and how these elements interact with each other.
“Concrete realism is art that shows thoughts and feelings instead of showing a thing; that, instead of demonstrating thoughts and feelings, evokes thoughts and feelings; that instead of taking forms from the external environment, creates a living reality.”
This is how the Swedish artist Olle Bærtling (1911–1981) described concrete art in 1956. From 1950, he regularly exhibited his work in Paris and was part of an international circle of concrete artists. He later also became involved with the new art scene in New York, where geometric abstraction was associated with Hard Edge painting.
Artists represented
Auguste Herbin, Burgoyne Diller, Ilya Bolotowsky, Josef Albers, Jean Gorin, Max Bill, Émile Gilioli, Jesús Rafael Soto, Carlos Cruz-Díez, Sergio de Camargo, Luis Tomasello, Julio Le Parc, François Morellet, Jean Dewasne, Birger Carlstedt, Sam Vanni, Alberto Magnelli, Gunnar S. Gundersen, Aase Texmon Rygh, Olle Bærtling, Lars-Gunnar Nordström, Juhana Blomstedt, John McLauchlin, Victor Vasarely, Robert Jacobsen, Aurélie Nemours, Arne Malmedal, Inger Johanne Grytting, Callum Innes, Kumi Sugaï, Richard Mortensen, Olav Christopher Jenssen, Bjørn Ransve, Paul Brand, Kristin Nordhøy, Ludwig Sander, Paul Osipow, Ellsworth Kelly, Tony Smith, Carmen Herrera, Victor Pasmore.
More about the exhibition
The exhibition is curated by Karin Hellandsjø, former Director of Henie Onstad Art Centre, in collaboration with curator Frode Sandvik from Kode.
Erling Neby began collecting works by concrete artists in the early 1970s. The collector’s selection offers a personal perspective on the positions and legacy of concrete and geometric art.
Works from the collection have been shown in several exhibitions since the early 1990s, both in Norway and internationally, at institutions such as Pori Art Museum in Finland, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, Scandinavia House in New York, Whitney Museum in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
The exhibition is part of a series of projects at Kode in 2023–2024 under the title “The Collectors” in which the museum turns the spotlight on historically important collectors and donors, but also contemporary collectors who have been concerned with making their collections available to the public.
Notes to editors
The exhibition opens on Friday, October 6 at 7pm in Stenersen, Kode. For further press information, please contact Head of Press: Maria Tripodianos, maria.tripodianos [at] kodebergen.no / T +47 414 59 187
